Easy Breezy Orestorante – Pasta with Squid

Sent to Harrods from my just-knee-operated husband to buy some fresh fish. It sounds awful but here in London if you want to find some good authentic Mediterranean fish you have got to go to Harrods fishmonger. How weird to buy octopus and squid in a department store?! I would have never thought to end up this way. Anyhow, I have to park my car in this 4£/h parking bay and go through the luxury dept. to get to the food hall and while I walk through this area I can’t help but notice this dressed up-middle east-beautiful woman with her 11 or so years old childish daughter. The girl’s got a super sweet attitude whereas her mum looks very worried not to be able to pick the right Hermes bracelet for her daughter.

Pasta with Squid

Honestly I start feeling bad for them both, having not the least sense of money, when I realise that the girl wears one of those cross body shoulder Balenciaga bags that probably cost around 600/700£. Stop feeling bad. They must be crazy, then. if they are so much into fashion and money how could they never be able to appreciate those easy breezy natural basics of life?! Like the one I am about to taste thanks to my chef husband. Pasta with squid. Recipe learnt at ‘Orestorante’, one of my favourite restaurant in the world – Ponza. http://www.orestorante.it/http://www.ponza.it/fotografie/11.asp

Pasta with Squid

Ingredients for 4 people

4 Small Squids

4 tbsp. olive oil

500 gr Pasta – the best would be ‘Calamaretti di Gragnano’ – find it on line on italian delicatessen website.

200 gr cherry tomatoes

200 gr peeled plum tomatoes

pinch of salt

1 clove of garlic

100 ml white cooking wine

small bunch of dill leaves

Method

Orestorante – Ponza

In a large pan, heat the oil and cook the garlic until it is golden. Remove the garlic.

In the meanwhile wash and put the cherry tomatoes in a pot with water to boil, once the water is boiling, drain the tomatoes and peel them off.

Slice the squids in thin slice.

Add the squids to the pan and cook gently into the oil for a couple of minutes.

Pour in the wine and simmer until it is all evaporated.

Cook the squids for about 5/6 minutes and then set them aside.

Now in the pan you have something like a sauce made out of oil, wine and squid sauce.

Add the peeled tomatoes to the pan, together with the drained plum tomatoes and cook this until the tomatoes are all smashed up.

Adjust with a pinch of salt.

When the tomatoes sauce is ready, add the squids back to the pan, stir it and remove for the heat.

Cook the ‘Calamaretti’ pasta (calamaro in Italian means squid) in salted boiling water and cook as per the manufacturer’s instructions.

Drain the pasta 1 minutes before is ready, return it to the warm pan with the squid sauce and keep cooking until is ready.